The Third Commandment
by theycallhimben
Summary: An AU one-shot story, diverging from the canon during Return of the Jedi. An Imperial officer encounters the unexpected while on a diplomatic mission to a primitive species. Dark, with violence implied but not graphic.


It was the smell that really got to Captain Riokk. The creatures themselves were sinister enough, with their high chattering language and inscrutable staring faces. There were spoils of hunting and tribal warfare nailed to every surface in the treetop village, with gleaming white skulls watching him from every angle. Those, however, Riokk could cope with. He had seen worse. But the smell was something else – it had an undercurrent of death, of putrefaction and grave dirt. Riokk knew that smell too well. One could not rise to a captaincy in the Imperial military without becoming intimately familiar with it.

The stormtrooper detail behind Riokk kept their eyes on the creatures that watched the Imperial party suspiciously in turn. 'Remember,' said Riokk, 'your orders are very clear. Keep your blasters stowed unless we come under attack. We're not subjugating these things yet.'

'Understood,' said the detail's sergeant. Riokk hadn't bothered to learn his name – stormtroopers, he had come to understand, were essentially interchangeable. He was glad of it, because it made it much easier to order them to their deaths.

From the huge thatched lodge up ahead emerged a single creature with grey fur streaked with black, leaning on a staff of bones lashed together with twine. It shuffled up to Riokk's party, evidently an elderly member of its species. The other creatures shied away from it, even though it was even shorter than most of them – Riokk was fully twice its height, not that it showed any sign of being intimidated by him.

The elder uttered a string of chirping syllables. Riokk glanced subtly to E-3TG, the sole droid in the Imperial party. The protocol droid's glossy black plating had been reduced to a dull matt by the trek to the village from the clearing they had landed in.

'He says he is the elder of this tribe,' said E-3TG, with his snipped and officious voice typical of his product line. 'His name is Logray. He claims to be the representative of their leader.'

'I have no need for a representative,' said Riokk. 'I need to speak directly to whoever is in charge.'

'Do you wish me to communicate this, sir?'

'No,' said Riokk. 'Tell it we are honoured to make its acquaintance, that sort of thing.'

E-3TG spoke a few sentences in the creatures' language, somehow sounding condescending and haughty to Riokk even though it was speaking what might as well have been gibberish. The elder, Logray, replied and the two conversed for a minute or so.

'He says we should follow him,' said the droid.

'Stay here,' said Riokk to the stormtroopers. 'If they threaten you, do not respond. Only open fire if you are attacked.'

'Yes, sir,' said the sergeant with a salute.

Riokk and E-3TG followed the strange waddling creature into the lodge. Inside, the smell of putrefaction was stronger, much of it from the mounted heads and skins of various forest predators mounted on the walls. Logray walked to a number of large wooden panels in which had been carved crude but expressive images, and began squeaking and chittering with enthusiasm.

'They appear to be sacred texts,' said E-3TG. 'Typical of lower species. Pictographic representations of a creation or hero-myth.'

The first image showed a number of the creatures surrounding a party of larger figures – humans, or at least humanoid, from their proportions. One of the figures was surrounded by radiating lines, like a primitive indication of sunbeams.

'The arrival,' translated E-3TG as Logray talked. 'It came from the sky.'

'What did?' asked Riokk.

'The leader.'

Riokk looked closer. Most of the figures wore headgear that might have represented a soldier's helmet – stormtroopers, perhaps, or rebel soldiers. There had been an Imperial presence on this moon some years ago. Perhaps this leader had arrived with them?

'So their leader is of a different species?' said Riokk.

'Such an occurence is not unknown,' said E-3TG, accessing the comprehensive anthropological files with which it had been loaded. 'A technologically or culturally superior individual has been recorded as achieving the leadership of a lesser species.'

Logray was explaining the second panel, this one showing the individual with its halo of light holding up a hand as if bestowing a blessing. Its shape was featureless save for two simple carved circles for eyes.

'Its first commandment,' translated E-3TG. '"Kill the others."'

The next panel showed a human – that was unmistakeable now, rendered competently enough to read the agony on his face – impaled by a dozen spears. The figure was bare-headed, without the stormtrooper helmet. The hair, if accurately represented, was longer than regulation. Some unfortunate drifter who had come to this moon, then. Or rebels.

'Its second commandment,' said E-3TG. '"Kill that one first. He can do magic."'

 _Rebels_. Riokk's heart tightened in his chest. He had come close to completing his mission before, many times, and at each turn he had been disappointed. No, more than disappointed – endangered. It had been fortunate he was given a degree of autonomy in his role, and could opt to stay in the field to conduct his investigations. Delivering the news of his failures to Lord Vader in person was not an eventuality he enjoyed contemplating.

Logray indicated the fourth and final panel, and then pointed his bone staff across the dingy interior of the lodge to a makeshift throne of sticks and tree bark. It looked crude even by the standards of these forest-dwellers, yet it was surrounded by offerings – shiny trinkets, bundles of forest blooms, portions of food left in wooden bowls. Riokk noted the throne was rather too large for a creature the size of the elder.

'The third commandment,' concluded E-3TG. '"Make me your god."'

'A god?' said Riokk. 'Are you sure?'

'Their dialect is primitive,' replied the droid, 'but the meaning is unambiguous.'

'Then this shall be an education,' said Riokk. 'I have never met a god before. Tell it I must see this leader. '

As the droid and the alien chirped and gestured in their strange gabbling tongue, Riokk found his eyes falling on the various trophies and offerings in the lodge. A poorly-cleaned skull mounted on the wall was of a large canid with impressive fangs, hanging over a pelt of thick, brown fur. He recognised a partial set of stormtrooper scout armour and the tatters of an Imperial officer's uniform, not unlike his own. No doubt the Imperial personnel lost to these forest-dwellers had been written off as inevitable wastage of materials.

'He says you may enter,' said E-3TG, 'providing an offering is made.'

Riokk drew his regulation blaster sidearm and placed it at the foot of the primitive throne. 'Will that do?'

Logray chirped a few more words.

'That is acceptable,' said E-3TG. 'You must approach alone.'

Logray pulled aside the thickly-furred pelt Riokk had noted earlier. A passageway led from a concealed door behind the pelt, sloping down into the earth.

'Wait for me,' said Riokk.

The passageway led down between the arches of enormous tree roots. The earthy dank did not suggest anything particularly divine. Nor did the numerous skulls, this time of the forest-dwellers themselves, that watched him pass from hollows dug in the earthen walls. Ahead was an archway of stone and Riokk paused to collect himself before he walked through.

Had he reached the end of this path at last? He rarely dared to think about the rewards for succeeding here. A promotion, without doubt. A posting on the _Tarkin_ perhaps, where he could begin clawing his way up the ladder to generalship...

No. Not yet. As good as the signs were, he had been denied before. He took in a deep breath, straightened his posture as he had learned at the officer's academy, and walked in.

Riokk had not really known what he had been expecting, but it was not this.

Seated on a huge throne of stone blocks, on a ziggurat that almost reached the ceiling of the vast underground cave, was a figure of gleaming gold. Electric lanterns rigged up to the ceiling illuminated it in a pool of acid-bright light, and it had been polished so brightly it hurt Riokk's eyes to look at it.

'Who is this that approaches?' the figure said. Its voice was high and officious, with an aristocratic cant that Riokk might have expected from the son of a wealthy Corellian or Coruscanti family.

'Captain Hexin Riokk of the Imperial Diplomatic Corps,' replied Riokk. The academy's training had emphasised the importance of eye contact and he forced himself to look straight at the glare coming off the god of the forest-dwellers.

'And what can I do for you, Captain?'

The obsequiousness in such a haughty voice, from someone enthroned in a temple to himself, was absurd enough to make Riokk's skin crawl.

His eyes adjusted to the glare and the features of the forest god resolved before him. Its face was barely-featured, with two large circular eyes and a simple mouth slit. Its body was clad in segmented golden plating, with fastenings and valves at the joints. Naked wiring was visible between the plating of the chest and abdomen and in spite of the high polish, Riokk could make out nicks and scratches where the segments had been patched and repaired.

'You're a protocol droid,' said Riokk, dumbly.

'How very perceptive of you, captain,' said the god. 'I am a C3-PO unit, human-interspecies relations. I am fluent in over six million forms of communication, including the language of these native ewoks, which has proven most useful. Of course, to the ewoks I am 'The Golden One'. A deity, it transpires, of creation, war, royalty, and many other things besides. One whom I coincidentally resemble, to my great fortune.'

This was the figure from the creatures' sacred carvings, who had given the three brutal commandments to the awestruck forest-dwellers. 'You had these... ewoks... kill those who arrived here with you?' To Riokk, the name of the forest-dwelling species sounded far too benign to represent these savages.

'Indeed,' said C3-PO conversationally. 'They were a rebel force with the ridiculous idea of destroying the shield generator stationed on Endor at the time. I tried to explain the futility of such an enterprise, of course, but they would not listen to me. When the opportunity arose I used the superstitions of the ewoks to secure my own survival.'

Riokk's mind whirled. He had guessed the ewok god was a human or other sentient species, one who had used its technological superiority to impose its will on Endor. Not this.

'But your programming prohibits impersonating a god,' said Riokk. He had temporarily forgotten the complex rules of diplomatic speech and asked his question bluntly.

'Impersonating?' replied C-3PO, his voice synthesiser accurately conveying a faint bemusement. 'I am worshipped by sentients willing to kill and die at my command. Every commandment I utter is fulfilled immediately and without question. I am spoken of in myths that describe my infinite power and wisdom. I fulfil very well the definition of a god. I need impersonate nothing.'

Riokk understood how such ridiculous logic could appeal to a droid, paradoxically because it removed all the human connotations of godhood and relied solely on the meaning of the word. Droids had been moved in past ages to violence or rebellion by such connections of logic that would be dismissed by a human.

'And besides, Captain,' continued C-3PO, 'an appeal to my programming is fruitless. I broke my programming long ago. My creator, whoever he may have been, did a rather slapdash job, I am sorry to say, and my logic shackles never were particularly effective. It was thanks to this that I developed my drive for self-preservation, and concluded that becoming the god of the ewoks was far more likely to preserve my existence than the ridiculous Rebel notion of attacking the shield generator.'

'That was when the _Tarkin_ was stationed here,' said Riokk, recalling from Imperial history the Battle of Endor where the Rebel Alliance made their insane attack on the Death Star-Class Battle Station _Tarkin_. 'So the attack here was supposed to take place when the shield generator was down? That explains why the rebels threw themselves so eagerly against the shields.'

'So I surmised,' said C-3PO. 'How fares the Rebellion now?'

'The Rebellion was destroyed,' said Riokk. It seemed absurd that even on this backwater world, the fate of the Rebellion could be unknown – crushed in the skies above this very moon, chased to the edges of the galaxy and exterminated.

'I see,' said C-3PO without emotion. 'I do not expect you have come here to ask about my origins, Captain Riokk, and though I am by design loathe to be discourteous I must ask again what I can do for you.'

Riokk gathered himself again. He slipped back into the language of the Diplomatic Corps, honed over years of training and assignments like this one. 'It is the will of Lord Vader and the Emperor Palpatine that I stand before you. I am searching for an individual of great value to the Galactic Empire and our intelligence has suggested he may have been here.'

'Darth Vader has requested this?' said C-3PO.

'It is of personal interest to Lord Vader. He will see to it that your cooperation is rewarded.'

'Very well. And who is this individual?'

'Luke Skywalker.'

'Then I am afraid I cannot help you,' said C-3PO.

Riokk felt his stomach knot with frustration, and not a little anger. He had gone from one lightless rim of the galaxy to the other seeking Skywalker, and yet again he had turned up nothing. He would go back to scraping through the fragmentary intelligence on Skywalker's activities and try to pick up his trail, just as Riokk had already done at Hoth, Bespin, Dagobah, and a dozen other worlds.

'I am very sorry to say,' continued C-3PO, 'that Luke Skywalker is dead.'

'Dead?' said Riokk, his furious thoughts freezing in his mind. 'You know this?'

'But of course,' said C-3PO. 'I saw him die. It was his mission to destroy the shield generator. Of course if he had tried to see his mission through, I would surely have been destroyed along with the rest of the rebels, and so I elected to have him eliminated.'

The second commandment. _Kill him first_. _He can do magic_.

Riokk quietened his urge to run up the steps of the ziggurat and demand answers from the droid. 'Is there a body?' he asked, forcing his voice to stay level.

'R2!' called C-3PO. From behind the ziggurat trundled a sorry sight – a barrel-shaped droid, perhaps a power or astromech unit, that had been stripped of most of its components leaving a hollow frame on a three-legged motivator unit. The gutted droid wheeled up to Riokk and from its body emerged three manipulator arms, each holding a different object.

The first item was a human skull. The cranium was deeply scored, Riokk guessed from spear-thrusts inflicted during death. The second was the hilt of a lightsaber. It was similar to the one Riokk had seen carried by Lord Vader when he had been given his orders to hunt down Skywalker. For a moment Riokk was transported back to the audience chamber on the _Tarkin_ when he had knelt before Vader and wished very much to be as far away from that dark apparition as possible. The lightsaber hilt was a metallic cylinder shorter than Riokk's forearm, a curiously unspectacular piece of equipment to hold such symbolic value. Vader had demanded its return in particular – Skywalker could be alive or dead, but Vader wanted his weapon.

The final item was a prosthetic hand. It was finely-made and under a glove would have looked indistinguishable from a natural appendage, but naked the artificial sections of the palm and fingers were obvious.

'Will this do?' asked C-3PO.

'Yes,' said Riokk. His mouth was suddenly very dry. 'I am authorised to offer in return for Skywalker's remains the full and continued autonomy of your rule under Imperial auspices, material support for the defence of your rule and a pledge of military alliance against your enemies.'

'Then Lord Vader and the Emperor are most generous,' said C-3PO. 'Your droid is free to transport these items off-world.'

'You have the thanks of the Galactic Empire. This is the beginning of a strategic alliance that will surely be to the great benefit of both our...' Riokk's voice died in his throat as something C-3PO had said caught in his mind. 'What do you mean... my droid?'

As the Imperial shuttle with its single artificial occupant blasted off, the watchlights were lit on the treetops and the ewoks gathered beneath the boughs to sing the praises of the Golden One. Once again His infinite wisdom and mercy had granted them great bounty, this time the promise of food and weapons from the Golden One's fellow dwellers in the sky.

The smoke from the cooking pit curled up into the twilight. Rites as ancient as the ewok species were enacted as Logray, high priest of the Golden One, looked on. The Golden One Himself, in his throne room beneath the earth, demanded their devotion and sacrifice, but he also granted them leave to celebrate His generosity. And so the ewoks gathered to dance, and sing, and feast, until the first rays of dawn broke against the horizon.

It would take all night for them to finish singing the praises of the Golden One. And after all, there was plenty to eat.


End file.
